Committees Make Recommendations

The Utility and Administrative committees of the Trenton City Council met on Tuesday night, taking action on several items.
The Utility Committee will be asking the council to approve the purchase of reclosure units to help curtail outage issues occurring at the Nestle plant. Electric Distribution Supervisor Mark Newton said the plant has experienced several “blinkage” issues that have affected the production line and that installation of the reclosures would help with that situation. The reclosures would “isolate” Nestle onto its own electric circuit. It would be at least spring before the work could be done, which committee members noted would allow the cost for the project to be included in the new city budget. The estimated cost is just over $81,000, which would include three reclosure units (two for Nestle and one for another area of town) as well as engineering/programming costs.
The committee voted to purchase a protection system for one of the city’s electric generators at a cost of $7,400. Without the system, the generator would not be able to run when all generators are operating at the same time.
The committee also discussed improvements to the city’s industrial park in north Trenton, which City Administrator Ron Urton said has also been discussed by the North Central Missouri Development Alliance. Urton said the NCMDA would like to move forward in getting cost estimates regarding installation of a curbed and guttered road at the site as well as extension/improvement of the water and sewer lines. Once the costs were determined, a plan could be developed in how the project could be accomplished. The committee agreed this would be a good time for the city, county and township to discuss ways the entities could work together on future projects.
Urton told the committee that the city would be installing three light poles from Fourth Street to the entrance of the new Dollar General Store to improve lighting in that area. The estimated cost is around $3,800, which includes materials and labor.
During a meeting of the Administrative Committee, it was decided to have Urton meet with city/utility department heads and review the city’s purchasing policy. Several committee members, along with other council members present at the meeting, expressed concerns with the policy in regard to when purchases can be made without council approval as well as the “local purchase” clause that states the council is allowed to accept a bid from a local provider when it falls within 5 percent of the low bid up to $1,000. Change suggestions are to be brought back to the committee before being forwarded to the council.
Present at the meeting were all eight city council members, Mayor Dr. Nick McHargue, Urton, City Clerk Cindy Simpson and utility employees Mark Newton, Kenny Ricketts, Steve Reid and Bobby Hutchison. City Attorney Tara Walker was present for the Administrative Committee meeting.